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EYE ON THE PIE: Time to stop being timid and tell the truth

The latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis show that Indiana ranks 33rd in per capita personal income. Fifty years earlier, in 1956, Indiana ranked 17th in the nation. Our state is in long-term economic freefall and we suffer with representatives who piddle away their time on raising revenue through gambling. Per capita personal income in Indiana has not been on par with the nation since 1966. We have a record of ongoing decline, interrupted briefly from time…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Jobs news is negative however you slice it

What’s the news on Indiana employment? Odd as it might seem, that phrase is almost a contradiction in terms. For while we do receive very timely, detailed information on how many jobs are carried on Indiana employers’ payrolls each month, the practical challenges in keeping close tabs on the latest zigs and zags in the 3 million-strong Hoosier labor force make the interpretation of the fresh data difficult. Only after the data have sat on the shelf for half a…

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Management’s traffic cop: Administrative assistants play numerous roles, gain more respect

As a girl, Lori Drzal dreamed of becoming a spy, a policewoman-something where she’d be helping others. Her father had different ideas. “Become a secretary,” he told her. “You’ll always have a job.” “Today,” she said, “I think, ‘Why did he tell me that?’ But … I’ve always had a job. I’ve always grown in my jobs, and I’ve always been challenged.” Drzal, 48, executive assistant to Steak n Shake President and CEO Peter Dunn for the past four years,…

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INVESTING: Keep eye on inflation but don’t batten down hatches

For the first time in a while, I am going to use both hands when I write the column. If you visit this space even occasionally, you know I call my spots and I don’t hedge my opinion. I was practically all alone in late February when I wrote as forcefully as I could to buy in the sell-off, which was almost the exact bottom, and readers have been amply rewarded. But today I am going to talk about interest…

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Task force to tackle big job: tallying infrastructure needs: Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce leads one-year study

Indianapolis hasn’t attempted to systematically catalog all its infrastructure needs since 1991. Back then, the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce collected a list of the most pressing local projects and presented it to Mayor Stephen Goldsmith. The price tag at that time: $1.1 billion. A lot has changed in the 16 years since the Chamber released its Getting Indianapolis Fit for Tomorrow report. Some problems it identified, such as the health risk of combined sewer overflows, have been partly addressed….

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ROSE awards ceremonies honor hospitality workers: Eleven employees commended for top-level service

After the passing of the restaurant’s general manager, “Mama” stepped into the grief-filled void, providing leadership while consoling the staff. During a charity silent auction, Camerone auctioned off herself as an inhome chef for an evening. She ended up generating the most proceeds, enough to make a dream come true for a child during the Make-a-Wish Telethon. Pamela Evans, customer service agent, American Airlines Evans is a customer service agent for American Airlines and her territory often can be among…

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BULLS & BEARS: What investors can learn from venture capital skid

I was watching a business program the other day, and one of the guests was an independent-thinking fellow who summarily dismissed the old saw, “They don’t ring a bell at the top.” He went on to say, “They do ring bells; it is just that nobody listens.” Remember the glory days for venture capital? It doesn’t seem that long ago when an idea was worth a billion-dollar initial public offering. Back in the 1990s, the wizards of Silicon Valley were…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Indiana less entrepreneurial than nation

For many people, owning a business is a dream. As a nation, we idolize such people as “entrepreneurs.” We assemble data that show “small business” as the heart of the economy (even though the definition of “small” is fewer than 500 employees). Let’s look at this segment of the economy. Oops. The data we have are not as good as we want. We do not know how many proprietors or business operators are full-time and how many are part-time. It…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: How Hoosiers who smoke are hurting state economy

For those who have gone through life shying away from anything involving numbers, the demonstration of the principle of compound interest is usually an eye-opening revelation. It’s quite simple, actually. Money set aside today accrues interest, if it is wisely invested. But so does the interest on what you set aside yesterday. Over a long time span, this snowballing of interest on interest can build up to a sizable nest egg. That’s why financial advisers always tell you to start…

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MICKEY MAURER Commentary: The power of a single ‘thank you’

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my job as president of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. and secretary of commerce was the opportunity to represent our governor and the state of Indiana on goodnews occasions. On April 26, 2005, I bestowed official state certification on Intech Park, a business incubator that had qualified under the Indiana Certified Technology Park Program. Certified tech parks enjoy the advantage of being allowed to capture and invest in the development of their park…

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Ratio building go-to reputation: Convention Center expansion latest notch in firm’s belt

As the Final Four approaches, it seems fitting to relive in basketball terms how Ratio Architects Inc. came off the bench in dramatic fashion to save a high-profile downtown project after the star had fouled out. The Indianapolis-based architectural firm played that role in 2004 after sketches from the original out-of-town architect designing the downtown headquarters of Simon Property Group Inc. failed to impress corporate executives. Ratio had one week to deliver, and did. But while the firm’s portfolio is…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Ideas needed for fixing health care financing

It’s been 15 years since third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot briefly captured the nation’s attention with his crisp, witty promises to “look under the hood” to fix the problems in Washington. Since that time, some problems have gotten worse, some have gotten better. But in this era of political polarization and legislative gridlock, the idea of a new face coming to town to actually fix some of the problems we face today is as appealing as ever. What would such…

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MICKEY MAURER Commentary: Hoosiers, wake up to the world

Don’t rest the chopsticks on your food. Don’t blow your nose during the meal and never pour the soy sauce on your rice. These and other tidbits of Japanese dining etiquette had to be digested before our first trade mission to Japan in 2005. That 74-person mission, led by Gov. Mitch Daniels, was the largest delegation of Indiana business leaders and state and local officials ever on foreign shores. Indiana is the No. 1 manufacturing state in the union. More…

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NOTIONS: Must we pay the painful price of Hoosier incivility?

One of the most effective advertisements I ever created never had to be published. The mere fear it instilled via private showings to Connecticut state legislators was enough to undo the havoc they were threatening to wreak. At the time, lawmakers were contemplating what they called a “business services tax,” a tax that would be imposed on the services one division of a corporation provided to another, so long as both operated within the state. For example, if an Aetna…

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Tax break would reward patent producers: Indiana legislators view bill as way to attract young, innovative high-tech companies and solo entrepreneurs

A bill weaving its way through the Indiana General Assembly could give the state an edge in attracting and growing the type of high-tech ventures several states covet. Indiana House Bill 1461, introduced by Rep. Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, advanced to the Senate after sailing through the House of Representatives on Feb. 26 by a vote of 95-3. The legislation that was referred to the Senate’s Economic Development and Technology Committee would provide a tax incentive that would shield income from…

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BULLS & BEARS: Amid all the complaining, U.S. continues to prosper

A few weeks ago, I heard Ben Stein speak about politics and the economy. The noted lawyer, writer, actor and economist spouted off various positive statistics about the U.S. economy and then lamented that the public seemed morose about the financial sunshine. Even though our standard of living is at an all-time high, it seems as if Americans like to grovel and complain. Stein said, in his best Ferris Bueller drone, the American public was the most “unhappy happy society”…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: How consumers respond when paper profits vanish

Most market sages know it already, but there is always a new generation of investors that needs to relearn the lesson taught by this latest financial market volatility. Namely, that paper wealth is subject to change. Turning your financial wealth into something else of value-like a house, or a car, or even a bond-always contains an element of uncertainty. If you want to take it literally, more than a trillion dollars of wealth was wiped out in the first five…

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The high cost of not going to college VIEWPOINT:

The high cost of not going to college VIEWPOINT Recent studies reinforce what many parents and prospective students have found out firsthand: The cost of a college education is rising beyond what some middle- to lowincome families can afford. The cost of attending a public college rose 35 percent during the past five years, after adjusting for inflation, according to studies by the College Board, a not-for-profit organization that administers standardized tests throughout the country. As these and other studies…

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BEHIND THE NEWS: Duke Realty hits groove; stock rings up big returns

T h e m a n a g e – ment team at Duke Realty Corp. is proving itself adept at juggling these days. The Indianapolis-based industrial, office and retail developer wowed Wall Street with a 25-percent increase in fourth-quarter funds from operations, a key measure of performance for Duke and other real estate investment trusts. The company received a lift, in part, from a spate of property sales. But the solid results weren’t an aberration for the relatively low-profile…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Markets pay a premium for the college-educated

Nothing erases the thrill of getting a raise from your employer faster than the news that someone else got a bigger one. We care about how much money our friends, neighbors and coworkers make-not always in a benevolent sense-even though there is usually little we can do about it. The trappings of material wealth are all around us, and it is almost impossible, it seems, not to get caught up in the game. But despair over disparities in income and…

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